In perhaps the biggest change to its service since its inception, Twitter on Tuesday announced a bunch of changes meant to distance itself from the controversial 140-character-per-tweet rule.

In the coming months, Twitter will be simplifying some of the stuff that counts towards the 140-character limit.

This includes not counting any @name mentions or media attachment URLs in the 140-character limit. The company is also removing its hardly used “.@name” feature that was used to broadcast a tweet to a wider audience. The company is also allowing Twitter users to retweet or quote retweet their own tweets.

Replies: When replying to a Tweet, @names will no longer count toward the 140-character count. This will make having conversations on Twitter easier and more straightforward, no more penny-pinching your words to ensure they reach the whole group.

Media attachments: When you add attachments like photos, GIFs, videos, polls, or Quote Tweets, that media will no longer count as characters within your Tweet. More room for words!

Retweet and Quote Tweet yourself: We’ll be enabling the Retweet button on your own Tweets, so you can easily Retweet or Quote Tweet yourself when you want to share a new reflection or feel like a really good one went unnoticed.

Goodbye, .@: These changes will help simplify the rules around Tweets that start with a username. New Tweets that begin with a username will reach all your followers. (That means you’ll no longer have to use the ”.@” convention, which people currently use to broadcast Tweets broadly.) If you want a reply to be seen by all your followers, you will be able to Retweet it to signal that you intend for it to be viewed more broadly.

These changes will be available over the coming months so that app makers have enough time to make any needed updates to their Twitter clients built with Twitter’s official APIs.

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Twitter to Stop Counting Mentions and More in Its 140-Character Limit

In perhaps the biggest change to its service since its inception, Twitter on Tuesday announced a bunch of changes meant to distance itself from the controversial 140-character-per-tweet rule.

In the coming months, Twitter will be simplifying some of the stuff that counts towards the 140-character limit.

This includes not counting any @name mentions or media attachment URLs in the 140-character limit. The company is also removing its hardly used “.@name” feature that was used to broadcast a tweet to a wider audience. The company is also allowing Twitter users to retweet or quote retweet their own tweets.

Replies: When replying to a Tweet, @names will no longer count toward the 140-character count. This will make having conversations on Twitter easier and more straightforward, no more penny-pinching your words to ensure they reach the whole group.

Media attachments: When you add attachments like photos, GIFs, videos, polls, or Quote Tweets, that media will no longer count as characters within your Tweet. More room for words!

Retweet and Quote Tweet yourself: We’ll be enabling the Retweet button on your own Tweets, so you can easily Retweet or Quote Tweet yourself when you want to share a new reflection or feel like a really good one went unnoticed.

Goodbye, .@: These changes will help simplify the rules around Tweets that start with a username. New Tweets that begin with a username will reach all your followers. (That means you’ll no longer have to use the ”.@” convention, which people currently use to broadcast Tweets broadly.) If you want a reply to be seen by all your followers, you will be able to Retweet it to signal that you intend for it to be viewed more broadly.

These changes will be available over the coming months so that app makers have enough time to make any needed updates to their Twitter clients built with Twitter’s official APIs.